Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway

I am clueless as to what the SHC of Portugal’s SHC stands for and cannot find any indication of what it may be anywhere for this EP review. But you know what, it is really irrelevant in this case and maybe they’ll let us get by with it being whatever we want it to mean. I myself can come up with a plethora of possibilities, ones derived from the music contained on SHC‘s new self-titled EP.

For instance, Stoner Heavy Content or Space-Hard Craziness go far in actually describing the style of these five songs as well. See, that is exactly what we are receiving with them ala intensely heavy, spacey, cosmic psych doom rock. It is all instrumental for the most part too, an occasional spoken word or something but this is really more about the jam itself.

The one-take recording of these massively dense, Lo-Fi tracks allows for their raw, visceral nature to remain intact. Non-stop wahhed-out guitars, pummeling bass lines, and whirling tornadoes of drumming churn and churn away. The speedier, or uptempo timing of them acts like a seeming beehive of furiously active musicality.

Things do periodically taper down a bit, for instance, the fuzzy doom of “Nothingness” or “The Burning“. They may take a little bit slower approach but that doesn’t mean they are of a lighter fare in any way whatsoever. No, in fact, the slowed-down delivery makes them feel much more menacing if anything.

Check them, and the other songs, “Summoning Up Philip“, “Nutant“, and “Beyond The Mind” out via the Bandcamp audio embed below. The latter one happens to be my favorite cut of the five, an almost 11 and a half minutes of spiraling doom excess and sonic foreboding. Enjoy!

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